Isaiah 47

The Humiliation of Babylon

1 Come down and sit in the dust, Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; Sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans! For you shall no more be called Tender and delicate.2 Take the millstones and grind meal. Remove your veil, Take off the skirt, Uncover the thigh, Pass through the rivers.3 Your nakedness shall be uncovered, Yes, your shame will be seen; I will take vengeance, And I will not arbitrate with a man.4  As for our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is His name, The Holy One of Israel.5 Sit in silence, and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; For you shall no longer be called The Lady of Kingdoms.6 I was angry with My people; I have profaned My inheritance, And given them into your hand. You showed them no mercy; On the elderly you laid your yoke very heavily.7 And you said, I shall be a lady forever, So that you did not take these things to heart, Nor remember the latter end of them.8 Therefore hear this now, you who are given to pleasures, Who dwell securely, Who say in your heart, I am, and there is no one else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, Nor shall I know the loss of children;9 But these two things shall come to you In a moment, in one day: The loss of children, and widowhood. They shall come upon you in their fullness Because of the multitude of your sorceries, For the great abundance of your enchantments.10 For you have trusted in your wickedness; You have said, No one sees me; Your wisdom and your knowledge have warped you; And you have said in your heart, I am, and there is no one else besides me.11 Therefore evil shall come upon you; You shall not know from where it arises. And trouble shall fall upon you; You will not be able to put it off. And desolation shall come upon you suddenly, Which you shall not know.12 Stand now with your enchantments And the multitude of your sorceries, In which you have labored from your youth Perhaps you will be able to profit, Perhaps you will prevail.13 You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels; Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, And the monthly prognosticators Stand up and save you From what shall come upon you.14 Behold, they shall be as stubble, The fire shall burn them; They shall not deliver themselves From the power of the flame; It shall not be a coal to be warmed by, Nor a fire to sit before!15 Thus shall they be to you With whom you have labored, Your merchants from your youth; They shall wander each one to his quarter. No one shall save you.

Isaiah 48

Israel Refined for Gods Glory

1 Hear this, O house of Jacob, Hear this, O house of Jacob, Who are called by the name of Israel, And have come forth from the wellsprings of Judah; Who swear by the name of the Lord, And make mention of the God of Israel, But not in truth or in righteousness;2 For they call themselves after the holy city, And lean on the God of Israel; The Lord of hosts is His name:3 I have declared the former things from the beginning; They went forth from My mouth, and I caused them to hear it. Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.4 Because I knew that you were obstinate, And your neck was an iron sinew, And your brow bronze,5 Even from the beginning I have declared it to you; Before it came to pass I proclaimed it to you, Lest you should say, My idol has done them, And my carved image and my molded image Have commanded them.6 You have heard; See all this. And will you not declare it? I have made you hear new things from this time, Even hidden things, and you did not know them.7 They are created now and not from the beginning; And before this day you have not heard them, Lest you should say, Of course I knew them.8 Surely you did not hear, Surely you did not know; Surely from long ago your ear was not opened. For I knew that you would deal very treacherously, And were called a transgressor from the womb.9 For My names sake I will defer My anger, And for My praise I will restrain it from you, So that I do not cut you off.10 Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.11 For My own sake, for My own sake, I will do it; For how should My name be profaned? And I will not give My glory to another.

Gods Ancient Plan to Redeem Israel

12 Listen to Me, O Jacob, And Israel, My called: I am He, I am the First, I am also the Last.13 Indeed My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, And My right hand has stretched out the heavens; When I call to them, They stand up together.14 All of you, assemble yourselves, and hear! Who among them has declared these things? The Lord loves him; He shall do His pleasure on Babylon, And His arm shall be against the Chaldeans.15 I, even I, have spoken; Yes, I have called him, I have brought him, and his way will prosper.16 Come near to Me, hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; From the time that it was, I was there. And now the Lord God and His Spirit Have sent Me.17 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God, Who teaches you to profit, Who leads you by the way you should go.18 Oh, that you had heeded My commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.19 Your descendants also would have been like the sand, And the offspring of your body like the grains of sand; His name would not have been cut off Nor destroyed from before Me.20 Go forth from Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! With a voice of singing, Declare, proclaim this, Utter it to the end of the earth; Say, The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob!21 And they did not thirst When He led them through the deserts; He caused the waters to flow from the rock for them; He also split the rock, and the waters gushed out.22  There is no peace, says the Lord, for the wicked.

Isaiah 49

The Servant, the Light to the Gentiles

1 Listen, O coastlands, to Me, Listen, O coastlands, to Me, And take heed, you peoples from afar! The Lord has called Me from the womb; From the matrix of My mother He has made mention of My name.2 And He has made My mouth like a sharp sword; In the shadow of His hand He has hidden Me, And made Me a polished shaft; In His quiver He has hidden Me.3 And He said to me, You are My servant, O Israel, In whom I will be glorified.4 Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain; Yet surely my just reward is with the Lord, And my work with my God.5 And now the Lord says, Who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him, So that Israel is gathered to Him (For I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, And My God shall be My strength),6 Indeed He says, It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, And to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.7 Thus says the Lord, The Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One, To Him whom man despises, To Him whom the nation abhors, To the Servant of rulers: Kings shall see and arise, Princes also shall worship, Because of the Lord who is faithful, The Holy One of Israel; And He has chosen You.8 Thus says the Lord: In an acceptable time I have heard You, And in the day of salvation I have helped You; I will preserve You and give You As a covenant to the people, To restore the earth, To cause them to inherit the desolate heritages;9 That You may say to the prisoners, Go forth, To those who are in darkness, Show yourselves. They shall feed along the roads, And their pastures shall be on all desolate heights.10 They shall neither hunger nor thirst, Neither heat nor sun shall strike them; For He who has mercy on them will lead them, Even by the springs of water He will guide them.11 I will make each of My mountains a road, And My highways shall be elevated.12 Surely these shall come from afar; Look! Those from the north and the west, And these from the land of Sinim.13 Sing, O heavens! Be joyful, O earth! And break out in singing, O mountains! For the Lord has comforted His people, And will have mercy on His afflicted.

God Will Remember Zion

14 But Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me, And my Lord has forgotten me.15 Can a woman forget her nursing child, And not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, Yet I will not forget you.16 See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me.17 Your sons shall make haste; Your destroyers and those who laid you waste Shall go away from you.18 Lift up your eyes, look around and see; All these gather together and come to you. As I live, says the Lord, You shall surely clothe yourselves with them all as an ornament, And bind them on you as a bride does. 19 For your waste and desolate places, And the land of your destruction, Will even now be too small for the inhabitants; And those who swallowed you up will be far away.20 The children you will have, After you have lost the others, Will say again in your ears, The place is too small for me; Give me a place where I may dwell.21 Then you will say in your heart, Who has begotten these for me, Since I have lost my children and am desolate, A captive, and wandering to and fro? And who has brought these up? There I was, left alone; But these, where were they?22 Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will lift My hand in an oath to the nations, And set up My standard for the peoples; They shall bring your sons in their arms, And your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders;23 Kings shall be your foster fathers, And their queens your nursing mothers; They shall bow down to you with their faces to the earth, And lick up the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord, For they shall not be ashamed who wait for Me.24 Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, Or the captives of the righteous be delivered?25 But thus says the Lord: Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, And the prey of the terrible be delivered; For I will contend with him who contends with you, And I will save your children.26 I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh, And they shall be drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine. All flesh shall know That I, the Lord, am your Savior, And your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.